The creation of big banks wasn’t an unnatural act in the 1990s and it makes no sense to break them up now, William Harrison, former Chairman of JPMorgan Chase told CNBC’s "Closing Bell."
“I think it’s a horrible idea to break up the banks,” Harrison said in an interview Wednesday. “There was a reason why all the banks became large — that is scale and efficiency. It wasn’t an unnatural act.”
He continued, “The result of this has a lot of efficiency benefits for clients and customers both in the U.S. and around the world.”
Harrison also said that with the U.S. trying to compete in a globalizing world, having large banks is important. “We have great companies, we have the best banks and our banks have an impact on creating the deepest capital markets in the world,” he said. That has bolstered our economic standing in the world, according to Harrison.
Breaking up the banks would create many smaller banks that could not effectively serve their clients, he said.